now that we walk on different sides of the sea,
along tidy rows of apple trees
or driftwood resting on veined shingles

our hands are magpie-busy
with this old,
dreamy ritual,

we pluck homespun diamonds from the hours

to show you
any casual wonder,
whatever catches the light
splits it into
curly strands of orange and turquoise

like you do
with my attention…

i’m enjoying the process of re-editing poems with the lense of generosity.

i originally wrote all of them just as notes from me to me. the inside of my heart knows what i’m talking about.

but now i’m focusing on the fact that this is actually a shared gift. i’m laying down big white stepping stones for you to cross over inside - giving context, giving details, explaining and highlighting.

I wrote this poem for the opening ceremony of Milk N Honey, a delicious, cozy festival of conscious Eros in Poland.

What was most with me as I was writing - and reflected in the dinner conversations I had there - was that most of us get involved in that realm the hard way. after burn-out, broken marriages, near-death experiences. so that trembling part was with me as I left Berlin, kinky capital of the world, to venture to a place where it would take a different kind of courage to show up at an event like that. To dare to come into the unknown, and see what it has in store for us all.

so i talked to poets the other day and discovered we’re all in courtship of - a kind of absence.

i’ve been a painter, i’ve composed songs, i’ve written books.
none of this is like poetry.

yesterday i was discussing sound recording with a friend who’s a pro. I told her I recorded a demo album of my poems, very much a home-cooked thing : I was in a tiny Greek island, with no access to any gear, in a house of thin walls and howling wind.

Terrible, *terrible conditions for sound recording. But it was a Christmas gift and the days were ticking.

i just ran home to rip open the awaiting package : the first proof copy of my book! taking a breath to hold it in my hands while my mind turns over every detail and plots dozens of adjustments within seconds, but first - gratitude.

for this first solid crystal of many late-night scribblings by candlelight.

I sat down to write an intro to my poems collection stating “these are in chronological order. there’s 2 parts”.

and then this whole other thing happened. 


Introduction

“If you want to know god, enjoy the company of lovers”
Rumi

“They played our kitchen song
to my grandmother’s body in her bed.”

angelic voices drew us from slumber
to find the two women wrapped around a guitar

“Evening rise,
Spirit come…”

winter passed this morning
and so did she

i was rifling through pages of scribbled notes, preparing to host the last call of my online workshop. A sentence caught my eye.

“When hosting a workshop, always show up with a full cup”.

my cup felt full already - with fresh air from a long walk and dramatic endings, a morning chat in the woods where the penny dropped and i trimmed my sail, decided my temples needed another name.

anyway - that was daytime.
i prepare to tune myself further - flip out the yoga mat.

thank you carina for the moving time we shared during this on-the-fly photoshoot, a rainy Wednesday dodging pilgrims to the greenhouse...

for years i’ve been receiving visits of the peacock, saying constantly “be more visible”. it took some guts to dare to put on this dress for the shoot - it’s so stunning that i barely wear it. i can’t deal with how much i get stared at.

so carina dared me to put it on and here we go.

valentine day’s hangover
taught me something i did not know -
love can come.
love can go.

that day i wake and my heart is dense as a bucket of wet ash.

i busy my hands to not look at your face,
Stir some oils in a pan
to avoid you
in a flat three steps wide

you don’t get it
i stare at the candle
in the hovering sleep time

and where some contemplate the Beloved wrapped in its robes
of absolute -
silence, emptiness -
i trace my finger on the smiling wrinkles of God
in this so-human mystery,
the blotched-ink scribblings of our blueprints
that amazingly,
get us through the day
together

i’ve been feeling so warm and fuzzy around really special group gatherings i’ve been a part of lately. (and even organised a few myself - proud!)

one of my intentions for this moon cycle was to “walk small steps towards big dreams”.

yesterday that looked like a hardwood floor full of spicy women, camped down and buying potions and card games, mulled wine and cakes and talking about heartbreak and stroking backs and keeping an eye on the kids. archipelagoes of friendship drawn across the space with extended legs and fingers reaching out to wave helloes to the latest one to walk in.

i’ve just started receiving critics for my manuscript from men who are strangers. who are not part of the “sacred sexuality community”, for lack of a better term.

i’m really touched by the longing I hear under their words, specifically when I describe what it feels like, to receive semen inside of me. To conceive. To feel the immediate shifts as the womb and the whole body rearrange themselves to create a child.

as i flesh out more details into the book i find myself caught in the question of how to introduce all these people i love, whose names i’d slipped in with no further description.

i did not expect it to be so existential.

but it became quickly clear, why i’d avoided doing this.

how on earth do you describe someone you love?